Everyone riveted to the recent unexpected and shocking
corruption and bribery news in Turkey. No one had ever expected that the most
powerful political leader in the country, even of the Middle East, PM Erdogan,
and his Islamist ruling party would be rocked by such massive grant probes and
the following scandals, which involved the closest circle to Erdogan including
his son, ministers, their sons, and businessmen. Police seized $4.5m in cash
that was stuffed into shoe boxes and $5m in cash stuffed in a bookshelf in
Halkbank CEO Aslan’s house, while more than $1m in cash was discovered in the
home of Interior Minister Guler’s son, Baris Guler hidden in seven steel
vaults. The corruption scandal also exposed government’s ‘gas-for-gold’ scheme
with Iran in an effort to break sanctions. The relationship between Reza
Zarrab, a well-known Iranian gold trader for money laundering and gold
smuggling, and AK Party and evidence for bribes being given to overcome
sanctions worsened the situation.
When a corruption scandal breaks out in a democratic state
of law such as Turkey, many would expect to see the leaders and anyone involved
in allegations to trust the country’s justice system and let judges,
prosecutors, and police force do their job with the hopes of being acquitted.
For instance, Princess Cristina of Spanish royal family, the youngest daughter
of King Juan Carlos, is currently facing tax fraud and money laundering
charges. Cristina appeared on court today to testify in fraud probe. One would
expect to see a royal king or a family to be overprotective of one of the
family members and hide his or her from public prosecution. Rather, Princess
Cristina chose to appear at court and testify.
What happened in Turkey and the way Erdogan and his ruling
party reacted to the probes are unique. I believe it is so unique that one day
it will be part of lectures in the political science departments of most
universities and would become the subject of dissertation studies all around
the world. Contrary to what is demanded from a democratically elected
government, Erdogan’s and the ruling Justice and Development Party’s reactions to
probes have been fierce. Erdogan immediately called the investigation an
‘international plot’ to overthrow his government orchestrated by ‘external’ (America,
Israel, Germany, and the interest lobby) and ‘internal’ forces (the big
industries namely the Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association aka TÜSİAD
as well as the Hizmet Movement – a faith inspired community inspired by Turkish
Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen who advocates dialogue among people from all
walks of life to build a better world and a spiritual form of Islam that is
open to science).
His arguments intensified day after day and were quickly
appropriated by his followers and pro-AKP media which are comprised of nearly
17 newspapers, 7 TV stations and more than 80 columnists; a big power in a
small country such as Turkey. In the following days, Erdogan went on to develop
a plethora of arguments to support his agenda and used expressions such as
“dirty coalition,” “international masterminds,” “parallel state,” “pawn of international networks,” “traitors,”
“global assassination attempt,” “breaking of hands,” “entering their dens,”
“crushing them,” “second war of independence,” “dirty international media,” “blood lobby,” “no
surrender,” “Hashashin,” (an ancient group of assassins) “parallel structure,”
“pineapple republic,” “unlawful organization,”
“gang,” “coup supporters,” “spies,”
“viruses,” “false scholar,”
“hollow saint,” “fake prophet,” and “those who worship people”…
It took PM Erdogan about two months to come up with all
these comments in an effort to fight his new “independence war” against the
corruption probe (or “global assassination attempt” according to him) yet he
still can’t manage to offer any proof of his conspiracy allegations or show any signs of
cooperation with the judicial system. On the contrary, his government continues
to make attempts to render the judiciary dysfunctional. Besides, considering
that 30% to 50% of citizens voted for AKP in the previous elections and that majority
of which appropriates Erdogan’s arguments on Twitter and on the streets against
their neighbors and other voters, one can imagine the level of stress as well
as the divide it creates among people of Turkey just before the elections in
March 2014.
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